


Shabbos

by ama



Series: In Ruth's Footsteps [2]
Category: The Pacific (TV)
Genre: Conversations, Domestic Fluff, Established Relationship, F/M, Jewish Character, Jewish Identity
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-06-13
Updated: 2016-06-13
Packaged: 2018-07-14 18:24:39
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,102
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/7185128
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ama/pseuds/ama
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Vera and Leckie share a Shabbos dinner.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Shabbos

**Author's Note:**

> Part of a series in which characters from different fandoms convert to Judaism, in honor of Shavuot. In this oneshot I write Leckie as ethnically and culturally Jewish, which is very much not canon but it would work so well, wouldn't it? Besides, this fic is based on the fictional characters as portrayed in The Pacific, not on the real people, etc etc.

The phone rang and Leckie picked it up immediately because, no matter who was on the other line, talking to them had to be better than writing this boring-as-shit article.

“Leckie, Star-Ledger.”

“Bob?”

“Miss Keller,” he said with a grin. He leaned back in his chair. “What can I do for you?”

“Do you have plans tonight?”

Leckie hesitated.

“I…”

“You don’t,” she caught on. “So come to dinner with me.”

“Vera, you know there’s nothing I’d love more--”

“But?”

“But I’ve subsided off coffee for two days straight because I was behind on three different deadlines. I’ve got typewriter ink all over my hands, and my hair looks like a French poodle in distress. I’m not sure if I’m in top dinner date condition.”

“Come anyway. You can just eat, and I’ll close my eyes and picture that dapper Marine who showed up on my doorstep last year. Win-win.”

She seemed unusually persistent for last-minute plans, and Leckie quirked his head curiously.

“It’s not Valentine’s Day and it’s not your birthday. Is it _my_ birthday?”

There was a scratchy pause on the other line, and Vera’s voice was shy when she spoke.

“It’s Shabbos.” She cleared her throat. “And I finally made challah that doesn’t look like a sea monster, and my parents aren’t home, so if you don’t come over, I’m going to have to eat two whole loaves of bread myself.”

“Sounds like a good night to me.” Leckie cradled the phone closer and rested his elbows on his desk. “I’ll be there. Six?”

“Six thirty. Candles at quarter of.”

“You got it.”

Vera said goodbye and rang off; Leckie replaced the phone and sat staring at it for longer than he should have, given the amount of writing he still had to do before six thirty.

He and Vera had been seeing each other for almost a full year now. They had, at one point, even been engaged. But then his mother had ever so helpfully asked if there was _any_ possibility that Vera might consider converting to Judaism. Vera had been caught off guard, but when Leckie had rebuked his mother, she had turned to him with sparkling eyes and said “Why not? It couldn’t hurt to just have the conversation, could it?”

Wrong. Because Rabbi Jacobs, that schmuck, had some sort of policy against women converting just because they were marrying Jewish men. He would sponsor her as a single woman or not at all--and Vera, for some reason, had decided the latter. So now they were un-engaged. Vera was handling the whole thing with good humor, and she did seem to be enjoying it, but Leckie was having a hard time understanding why they were going through all this work for a halakhic technicality. And Vera was being uncharacteristically vague with him. It was perplexing.

He shrugged it off. Maybe dinner would shed light on the whole thing--until then, he turned back to his typewriter.

-

That night, Vera greeted him at the door with a kiss, but pulled away quickly.

“In case Rabbi Jacobs has spies outside,” she grinned as they ducked inside. “Every time I say hi to you and your parents at shul I get nervous.”

“The fact that I’m there at all probably gives us away. Listen, Vera, do you have any idea how many rabbis live in Jersey?” he demanded for at least the ninth time. “Just because my mother likes this one, that doesn’t mean we have to stick with him. Shlomo Feinstein--”

“Stop trying to bribe Rabbi Feinstein!” Vera laughed.

Shlomo Feinstein’s son played football at  his high school, and Leckie had once written a very flattering profile of him for the Ledger. He was pretty sure he could get Feinstein to convert Vera in under a week.

“Besides, I’m only joking. I really do like Rabbi Jacobs. He’s… opinionated, but he’s very thorough.”

“Right, right.” Leckie was distracted; the house smelled _incredible_. He was excited enough for fresh-baked challah, because with eight children in the house, his mother had been buying theirs from the bakery down the street for as long as he could remember. But there was something else in the air, a scent that was rich and sweet and familiar. “Did you make brisket, too?”

“Well, we weren’t just going to have bread,” she scoffed. He followed her into the kitchen. “Your mother dug out her old recipe for me.”

She returned to a pot on the stove and Leckie looked around the room. The table was already set for two. There was also a huge covered platter for the brisket, and a plate with a towel draped over the lumpy challah. A bottle of kosher wine was waiting on the side, and two chunky brass candlesticks sat on the kitchen counter. Those, he knew, were usually in the Kellers’ dining room, and the tall green candles had been replaced by shorter white ones--candles that would burn out before they went to bed, so Vera didn’t have to extinguish a fire once Shabbos had officially begun.

Leckie walked up behind Vera and wrapped his arm around her waist. He rested his chin on her shoulder and pressed a kiss to the side of her head.

“Vera,” he murmured, “how long have you been planning this?”

“Hm?” she said in a faux-distracted voice.

“Brisket takes, what, twenty-four hours to cook? Challah takes four. You bought candles and wine. And you only called me at two in the afternoon.”

“I didn’t want to--build it up. It’s just dinner.”

“You’re doing a lot for ‘just dinner.’”

He could feel her take a breath, and then she turned around in his embrace and leaned back to look at him. She touched his cheek and Leckie obeyed the instinct to bend down and kiss her. God, he could never get enough of kissing her.

“It’s not just for dinner,” she said when they pulled away. Her thumb brushed softly against his jaw. “And it’s not just for you, either. It’s for me.”

Her eyes were solemn, and Leckie frowned.

“I’m missing something.”

“It takes a brave man to admit that,” she laughed. She turned to the stove again, and Leckie released her and leaned against the counter. “I know that all of this--converting--people think I’m doing it for you. It’s true that I first looked into it for you, but that’s not all.”

“Okay,” Leckie said slowly.

“With everything going… in our lives, in the world…” She bit her lip. “I need something sacred. And, right now, this is it. Dinner.”

She poured the pot of carrots and broccoli into a dish and placed it on the table. Then she looked at Leckie and sighed.

“Don’t look at me like that, Bob.”

“Like what?”

“Like… I don’t know. Like I’m going to start sitting six inches away from you and arguing pilpul and calling the television a goyische abomination. I… I want to be Jewish and still be myself, and marry you, and have the kind of life we talked about. And I know that you don’t believe in God and that you think a lot of this is old-fashioned so I didn’t tell you because--because I’m worried that half the reason you had a crush on me was because I was the exotic shiksa from across the street and that you still want to run away from the things I’m running toward.”

There was a pause like the break between gasping breaths.

“Wow,” Leckie said finally. “That--I had no idea--”

“That was too much. That was more than I meant to say.”

“No, no no no, it wasn’t,” Leckie assured her. He stepped closer and put his hands on her shoulder. “Vera, it’s not too much, it’s never going to be too much. I’m not running away from you, and I’m glad this is working for you, and I’m perfectly happy that I’m going to marry a nice Jewish girl. Not as happy as my mother is, but--”

Vera laughed, and her shoulders slumped in relief.

“Okay. Good. Thank you.”

“Yeah. I…” He paused, putting his words in the right order. “I’m not the most observant guy, I know that. And sometimes I don’t see the point of the little stuff--but when push comes to shove, I’m still a Jew. It’s still home for me, and if it’s something you want to share, then it’s yours. No questions asked.”

“Thank you,” Vera repeated in a soft voice. She wrapped her arms around his middle and they hugged each other tight for a minute; the sweet perfume of her hair tickled his nose. He pulled away first.

“Candles,” he reminded her.

“Yes. Right.”

Leckie sat at the table as Vera moved the brass candlesticks to the center of the table and took out a box of matches. She struck the match and the gunpowder smell wafted through the room as she held it against one wick and then the other. When she was done, she set it down on a little silver plate to burn out, leaving a wisp of blue smoke in its wake.

Vera lifted her hands in three slow circles in the air and then covered her eyes. She took a deep breath. Her voice shook at first, but the words were firm.

“Baruch atah HaShem Eloheinu Melech ha-olam, asher kiddishanu b’tmitvosav v’tzivanu lihadleek ner, lihadleek ner, shel Shabbos.”

She kept her eyes covered for a moment. The room was dark except for the warm yellow glow of the candles, which gilded her dark hair and the edges of her fingers. Leckie stared at her, unable to understand why his throat felt so tight. Yes, she was beautiful. Yes, he loved her. But…

It had been a long time since Leckie had found anything sacred. Even before he had lost God for good--washed away along with everything else on Gloucester--he had ceased to find solace in prayer or deeds. It had always been elusive for him, because his parents had seemed so fucking _tired_ all the time. Tired and distracted, rushing through rituals, more concerned about whether their children were educated and fitting in and married than whether they knew their brachot. Leckie’s Jewishness was Yiddish, corner delis and bakeries, newspapers, comic books, and obligatory High Holy Day services. It was starting fights with casual anti-Semites and isolationists and American Nazis. And… especially lately… it was grief.

He had thought Vera’s conversion was a concession to--to something. To his mother’s wishes, to their future children, to a united home. A dig at her parents’ reluctance to give concrete approval. He had sometimes caught a glimpse of her praying in the women’s section at shul and been happy that she at least wasn’t miserable about it, that she could salvage something. He hadn’t expected this, this peace and surety, this incredible quality she had to look at the good in everything and nurture it. To leap into something new and not look back.

She lowered her hands to the table and opened her eyes. Leckie tried to smile but he didn’t think it worked, and her eyes lowered to the challah cover. She took it off and recited the blessing over bread, and then sat opposite him and flashed a quick smile.

“There, that’s it. I don’t remember Kiddush and I left my siddur upstairs, so we don’t have to pray or sing anymore.”

“Yes,” Leckie said in a hoarse voice. He cleared his throat. “Yes, actually, we do.” Vera had been reaching for the bottle of wine; he put a hand over hers and then held it across the table. He smiled at her curious expression and leaned forward conspiratorially. “Just don’t tell Rabbi Jacobs.”

He swallowed again and wished he was a better singer. His voice was wobbly on a good day, when singing a song he actually knew--he knew the words for this, but it had been awhile since he had had a long Shabbos meal with all the prayers and songs that accompanied it, and he was a bit iffy on the tune. It was worth it, though, for the soft smile on Vera’s face and the way she looked down, eyelashes brushing the curve of her cheek, when he opened his mouth and began Eishes Chayil, the husband’s weekly paean to wives.

“ _Eishes chayil mee yimtza_ _  
_ _Verachok mi’pninim michra_   
Batach ba lev baala veshalal lo yechsar...”

_A woman of valor, who can find? Far beyond pearls is her value. Her husband's heart trusts in her and he shall lack no fortune..._


End file.
